IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pie/dsedps/2019-245.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Information overload and environmental degradation: learning from H.A. Simon and W. Wenders

Author

Listed:
  • Tommaso Luzzati
  • Ilaria Tucci
  • Pietro Guarnieri

Abstract

This paper discusses the relevance of information overload for understanding environmental degradation. We ground our argument on the fact that both time and attention are needed to process information. This idea, which was core in the thought of Herbert Simon, also greatly affected the early works of the film director Wim Wenders. Because information overload reduces the awareness of the consequences of choices and life-styles, this concept is a crucial analytical category to interpret many present-days puzzles, including environmental degradation. The implications of information overload, together with the detachedness from nature of the lifestyles of people living in rich countries, can be easily seen within a standard consumer problem framework.

Suggested Citation

  • Tommaso Luzzati & Ilaria Tucci & Pietro Guarnieri, 2019. "Information overload and environmental degradation: learning from H.A. Simon and W. Wenders," Discussion Papers 2019/245, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    • Handle: RePEc:pie:dsedps:2019/245
    Note: ISSN 2039-1854
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ec.unipi.it/documents/Ricerca/papers/2019-245.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Baiardi, Donatella & Morana, Claudio, 2021. "Climate change awareness: Empirical evidence for the European Union," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    2. Simon, Herbert A, 1978. "Rationality as Process and as Product of Thought," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(2), pages 1-16, May.
    3. Ajzen, Icek, 1991. "The theory of planned behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 179-211, December.
    4. R. H. Coase, 2013. "The Problem of Social Cost," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(4), pages 837-877.
    5. Gkargkavouzi, Anastasia & Halkos, George & Matsiori, Steriani, 2019. "How do motives and knowledge relate to intention to perform environmental behavior? Assessing the mediating role of constraints," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 1-1.
    6. Chaim Zins, 2007. "Conceptual approaches for defining data, information, and knowledge," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 58(4), pages 479-493, February.
    7. Agnès Festré & Pierre Garrouste, 2015. "The ‘Economics of Attention’: A History of Economic Thought Perspective," Post-Print halshs-02314240, HAL.
    8. Funtowicz, Silvio O. & Ravetz, Jerome R., 1994. "The worth of a songbird: ecological economics as a post-normal science," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 197-207, August.
    9. Castro e Silva, Manuela & Teixeira, Aurora A.C., 2011. "A bibliometric account of the evolution of EE in the last two decades: Is ecological economics (becoming) a post-normal science?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(5), pages 849-862, March.
    10. Munda, Giuseppe, 2004. "Social multi-criteria evaluation: Methodological foundations and operational consequences," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 158(3), pages 662-677, November.
    11. Agnès Festré & Pierre Garrouste, 2015. "The ‘economics of attention’: A history of economic thought perspective," Post-Print hal-01143436, HAL.
    12. Simon, Herbert A, 1979. "Rational Decision Making in Business Organizations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(4), pages 493-513, September.
    13. Mayumi, Kozo & Solomon, Barry D. & Chang, Jason, 2005. "The ecological and consumption themes of the films of Hayao Miyazaki," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 1-7, July.
    14. John C. Bergstrom & John R. Stoll & Alan Randall, 1990. "The Impact of Information on Environmental Commodity Valuation Decisions," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 72(3), pages 614-621.
    15. van den Bergh, Jeroen C. J. M. & Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Ada & Munda, Giuseppe, 2000. "Alternative models of individual behaviour and implications for environmental policy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 43-61, January.
    16. John Kenny, 2021. "The evolution of environmental concern in Europe," Chapters, in: Axel Franzen & Sebastian Mader (ed.), Research Handbook on Environmental Sociology, chapter 5, pages 79-96, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Tommaso Luzzati, 2009. "Human Needs, Sustainable Development and Public Policy: Learning from K.W. Kapp (1910–1976)," Chapters, in: Neri Salvadori & Arrigo Opocher (ed.), Long-run Growth, Social Institutions and Living Standards, chapter 14, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    18. Grether, David M. & Wilde, Louis L., 1983. "Consumer choice and information : New experimental evidence," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 115-144.
    19. Paul M. Kellstedt & Sammy Zahran & Arnold Vedlitz, 2008. "Personal Efficacy, the Information Environment, and Attitudes Toward Global Warming and Climate Change in the United States," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(1), pages 113-126, February.
    20. Venkatachalam, L., 2008. "Behavioral economics for environmental policy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(4), pages 640-645, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Luzzati, Tommaso & Baraldi, Stefano & Ermini, Sara & Faita, Claudia & Faralla, Valeria & Guarnieri, Pietro & Lusuardi, Luca & Santalucia, Vincenzo & Scipioni, Sara & Sirizzotti, Matteo & Innocenti, Al, 2025. "Can improving climate change perception lead to more environmentally friendly choices? Evidence from an immersive virtual environment experiment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).
    2. Renata Dagiliūtė, 2023. "Environmental Information: Different Sources Different Levels of Pro-Environmental Behaviours?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(20), pages 1-14, October.
    3. Shashi, & Centobelli, Piera & Cerchione, Roberto & Jhamb, Deepika, 2023. "Double-edged circularity: Comparative assessment of circular and non-circular consumers," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    4. Drews, Stefan, 2025. "Towards systems-oriented behavioral ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 227(C).
    5. Han, Myat Su & Zhang, Yiwen & Liu, Cinnie, 2025. "How do two facets of social media interaction shape waste sorting behaviour? Empirical evidence from Beijing, China," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 210(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Schlüter, Maja & Baeza, Andres & Dressler, Gunnar & Frank, Karin & Groeneveld, Jürgen & Jager, Wander & Janssen, Marco A. & McAllister, Ryan R.J. & Müller, Birgit & Orach, Kirill & Schwarz, Nina & Wij, 2017. "A framework for mapping and comparing behavioural theories in models of social-ecological systems," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 21-35.
    2. Spash, Clive L., 2013. "The shallow or the deep ecological economics movement?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 351-362.
    3. Elisabeth Gsottbauer & Jeroen Bergh, 2011. "Environmental Policy Theory Given Bounded Rationality and Other-regarding Preferences," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 49(2), pages 263-304, June.
    4. Paavola, Jouni & Adger, W. Neil, 2005. "Institutional ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 353-368, May.
    5. Ficko, Andrej & Boncina, Andrej, 2013. "Probabilistic typology of management decision making in private forest properties," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 34-43.
    6. Hosseini, Hamid, 2003. "The arrival of behavioral economics: from Michigan, or the Carnegie School in the 1950s and the early 1960s?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 391-409, September.
    7. Baudry, Marc & Faure, Anouk & Quemin, Simon, 2021. "Emissions trading with transaction costs," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    8. Silvia Sacchetti, 2015. "Inclusive and Exclusive Social Preferences: A Deweyan Framework to Explain Governance Heterogeneity," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 126(3), pages 473-485, February.
    9. Anderson, Blake & M'Gonigle, Michael, 2012. "Does ecological economics have a future?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 37-48.
    10. Roger Fouquet, 2012. "Economics of Energy and Climate Change: Origins, Developments and Growth," Working Papers 2012-08, BC3.
    11. Yun, JinHyo Joseph & Ahn, Heung Ju & Lee, Doo Seok & Park, Kyung Bae & Zhao, Xiaofei, 2022. "Inter-rationality; Modeling of bounded rationality in open innovation dynamics," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    12. David Blandford, 2010. "Presidential Address: The Visible or Invisible Hand? The Balance Between Markets and Regulation in Agricultural Policy," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(3), pages 459-479, September.
    13. Roberto PATUELLI & Enrico SANTARELLI & Annie TUBADJI, 2020. "Entrepreneurial intention among high-school students: the importance of parents, peers and neighbors," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 10(2), pages 225-251, June.
    14. Kent D. Miller & Shu-Jou Lin, 2010. "Different Truths in Different Worlds," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 21(1), pages 97-114, February.
    15. Meredith T. Niles & Margaret Brown & Robyn Dynes, 2016. "Farmer’s intended and actual adoption of climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 135(2), pages 277-295, March.
    16. Ignazio Visco & Giordano Zevi, 2020. "Bounded rationality and expectations in economics," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 575, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    17. Etxano, Iker & Villalba-Eguiluz, Unai, 2021. "Twenty-five years of social multi-criteria evaluation (SMCE) in the search for sustainability: Analysis of case studies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    18. Laurence Amblard & J.P. Colin, 2009. "Reverse tenancy in Romania: Actors' rationales and equity outcomes," Post-Print hal-00454533, HAL.
    19. Tyson, Christopher J., 2008. "Cognitive constraints, contraction consistency, and the satisficing criterion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 138(1), pages 51-70, January.
    20. Remig, Moritz C., 2017. "Structured pluralism in ecological economics — A reply to Peter Söderbaum's commentary," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 533-537.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pie:dsedps:2019/245. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dspisit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.